“Bobbetty’s Island—out in the river—old man Bobbetty’s?”
“The same, Tom.”
“Ghost thrown in?”
“I want you to hire it,” said Berty, severely, “and get some of your friends to make up a party, and go down there and put up a big, comfortable camp for our tramp to live in.”
“Why the island, Berty?” inquired Tom, in a suppressed voice. “Why not set him up in Grand Avenue. There’s a first-class family mansion to let there, three doors from us.”
“Tom Everest, will you stop your fooling. Our tramp is to live on the island because if he were in the town he would spend half his time in drinking-places.”
“But won’t the river be suggestive, Berty? It would to me, and I’m not a drinking man.”
“No, of course not—he will have his work to do, and twice a week I want you to row over yourself, or get some one to go and bring him to town, for he would go crazy if he were left there alone all the time.”
“I wonder you don’t get a companion for him.”
“I’m going to try. He has a wife, a nice woman in New Hampshire, who left him on account of his drinking habits. He says she will come back to him if he gets a good situation and promises to reform.”